What will the future structure of education at KTH look like? Will we keep the “Civilingenjörsexamen” forever? Do we need as many programs as today? Can we afford the education we give today even in the future? If not, is the problem that many of our courses are run with too few students? According to recent statistics 579 out of 1739 courses at KTH are run with less than 16 students? Do we recognize this at ITM? If not, why? Are there any problems at all, really?
These are some of the questions and issues that were discussed today when GA (myself) and vice-GA Catharina Erlich met with KTH´s special investigator Anders Axelsson and Björn Marklund together with representatives from Science, ABE and ECE schools. Axelsson, the former president of LTH, will present the results from his investigation, and associated recommendations, during the spring. One particularly interesting point of discussion was the motivation for our programs. We tried to convey the message that our programs at ITM are needed and that they all fulfil their purpose for both students and industry.
A lot of discussions will obviously follow and it will be interesting to see the final conclusions. It is a true challenge for anyone to find the “ideal concept” for KTH and the different schools. One thing is clear, gone are the days when it was enough to attract the students to KTH in the first place with a fancy program name. We also need to “keep” them and transform them into successful world class students that manage to get their degree on time and an interesting job afterwards. It is my firm belief that the difference in profile and character we have developed and refined for our programs at ITM still is a good strategy for this to happen. Another key success factor for the future is to work hard to maintain the strong and positive involvement from our academic staff in different positions as “program managers”, teachers and study counselors working together and continuing being proud of what we do in the educational field.
Another interesting topic discussed today was the employability of our students and the recent prognosis that there will be a lack of högskoleingenjörsstudenter (“Bachelor of Engineering”) in Stockholm in the near future. It seems to me that we have a lot of god things for this in the pipeline at the ITM School and maybe there is time to mention some of the activities planned for 2016 in the next blog post this week.
Per Lundqvist, GA